DOVE AND CUT THROAT synopsis

Dove and Cut Throat (176 pages) is one of Fina Casalderrey’s more recent novels, first published in 2007, which has been translated into Spanish. It is divided into twenty-two chapters. A teenager, André, is bullied at school by Raúl Pernas and others, and has difficulties knowing how to present himself in order to avoid problems. To a friend, Halima, he admits he needs help lifting himself off the ground from time to time; to others, he presents himself as more aggressive, someone they shouldn’t mess with. He has another friend he chats with on the Internet. Her chat-name is Dove, and he is Cut Throat.

To gain extra marks in class, André reads a story Dove has sent him about illegal immigrants arriving in Spain from Morocco. The story tells of a girl who travels with her mother in a rubber dinghy full of people. They spend hours at sea until coming within sight of the Spanish coast, but the coastguard appears and they have to swim. Her mother doesn’t survive, but the girl is adopted by a Spanish family and attempts to live out her dream. Halima likes the story and tells him so. It seems the teacher is also impressed, but André doesn’t dare admit the story was sent him by a friend.

André has arranged a meeting with Dove in person. While getting ready, he remembers the time before his sixth birthday when his father left home. He didn’t understand what was going on or why his father was taking everything with him, including the Panama hat he used in summer when it was only a few weeks before Christmas. All he saw was that he was allowed to have control of the TV remote and, when his mother took him to the park, to run around under the rain and splash his feet in puddles owing to his mother’s distraction. His mother accused his father of having no aspirations, but for André and his fifteen-year-old sister, Davinia, having a father on the door of the local disco was a bonus envied by their friends.

After a few weeks, André’s father comes on a visit. He has a beard, and André finally understands why he’s had to go away. He is one of the Three Wise Men who bring presents at Epiphany (the tradition in Spain is for children to receive presents at Epiphany as well as on Christmas Day). André gives him a long list of the presents he wants, but when his mother and sister return, Davinia points out that the reason their father has had to leave home is because he was unfaithful. André spends an increasing amount of time at his grandparents’ restaurant, The Birdhouse, where his grandfather has a hospital for birds in the garden. André’s mother is increasingly irritable; his father talks to him like a man and blames his mother for their troubles. At school, he shows Raúl Pernas and the other bully, Héctor Solla, a cannabis plant he found in his grandfather’s garden, but they force him to eat it and he is ill for two days.

André’s father buys a new flat in Pontevedra, where André goes to watch a Real Madrid-Barcelona derby, after which they let off bangers to celebrate the goals each team has scored. On an outing with his friend Curro, André discovers a wounded cut-throat finch, which he rescues with his grandfather and names Garuda after a book his father used to read him about the mythological creature. The boy and bird become inseparable, but one day the bird is accidentally killed and André is inconsolable. After an argument with his mother, he goes to his father’s new flat, hoping to live with him. He finds a room with a low bed and a portable computer – exactly what he wanted! But when his father comes home, he discovers the room belongs to Nuria, the daughter of his father’s new girlfriend. At school, Raúl Pernas pushes him around and forces him to smoke a joint and lick his shoes. André is sick and, when that evening his mother tries to warn him about the ill effects of smoking, he lets her think it was his decision to smoke and not because he was made to. André’s mother fails to pass her exam to become a nursing auxiliary while Davinia is caught shoplifting. André decides he has to change his lifestyle and the first thing he can do is get lower marks at school. Maybe then he won’t be bullied so much.

André is called in by the school counsellor for upsetting the music teacher. Neither the counsellor nor the teacher knows that André is being forced to do cruel things so that Raúl Pernas and Héctor Solla will leave him alone, but somebody in his class informs the teacher and she agrees not to have him disciplined. André practically moves in with his grandparents, who are aware of his problems at school. His grandfather teaches him how to look after the birds and they go to Padrón together to buy a parrot for André from the pet shop. They compare the way birds and humans behave when it comes to nesting and raising their young, with obvious ramifications for André, whose parents are divorced.